NASA Juno spacecraft is fully functional again.
The space agency reports that the spacecraft had returned to its usual operations after it went into safe mode to fix the anomaly that affected its onboard computer memory.
NASA's Juno spacecraft previously completed its 47th pass of Jupiter, yielding photos and science data for astronomers and scientists to examine and use.
NASA Juno Spacecraft Onboard Memory Glitch Timeline
Following its successful 47th close pass of Jupiter on Dec. 14, 2022, NASA's Juno spacecraft was sending the data it gathered to mission controllers from its onboard computer when the downlink was suddenly disrupted, per NASA's updated blog post.
The space agency explained that a radiation spike that flew from a radiation-intensive portion of Jupiter's magnetosphere probably caused the anomaly that disrupted Juno's downlink to mission control. Fortunately, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and its mission partners managed to reboot Juno's onboard computer on Dec. 17 and put it into safe mode.
By Dec. 22, NASA's JPL was taking steps to recover the data Juno gathered on its 47th close pass with Jupiter, with the process yielding promising results.
As a result, NASA was able to reestablish a downlink with Juno.
Additionally, there is no indication that the data it gathered through the time of its closest approach to Jupiter, or from the spacecraft's flyby of Io, Jupiter's moon, was adversely affected.
NASA expected that the rest of the data Juno recorded would be sent to Earth a week later. When it did, the agency will verify the data's health to determine if the anomaly caused other adverse effects to the data.
NASA then announced that Juno had returned to normal operations since Dec. 29 and that it successfully received the majority of the data it recorded during its 47th close flyby. The data recovered also included all data related to Io, per Space.com.
Despite this victory, however, the space agency revealed that the anomaly managed to corrupt a small portion of the data Juno gathered.
Nevertheless, the spacecraft is fully functional again and will soon embark on its next flyby of the Gas Giant on Jan. 22, 2023.
Juno's Resilience And Longevity
This anomaly isn't the only time NASA's Juno spacecraft defied fate. Space physicist Scott Bolton, principal investigator for the Juno mission, mentioned at a Dec. 14 news conference that the spacecraft is "built like an armored tank, and its shields are holding, per Science News.
The spacecraft and its mission were orignally expected to last until 2018 after completing 34 orbits of the Gas Giant. However, thanks to its design, it managed to last even longer.
As a result of this resilience and longevity, NASA scientists are uncertain when Juno will stop giving them front-row seats to Jupiter. What is certain, however, is that the spacecraft will end its mission on if own accord in two ways: either it becomes too deteriorated to continue functioning thanks to Jupiter's intense radiation or if it runs out of the propellant keeping its antennas pointed toward Earth.
Should the latter option happen, the spacecraft could still be recoding data, but it would be unable to send it back to Earth.
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